'I didn't call Zidane a dirty terrorist'

ROME: Italy defender Marco Materazzi denied on Monday reports that he had called Zinedine Zidane a "dirty terrorist" seconds before the France captain head-butted him in Sunday's World Cup final.

"It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means," the Italian news agency Ansa quoted Materazzi as saying after the Italian team returned to Rome.